Heavy rain today turned the Jones Falls into a raging torrent, prompting fire officials to evacuate two large business complexes in North Baltimore.

As chocolate-colored water lapped at the Smith Avenue bridge at Mt. Washington Mill, firefighters and emergency management officials ordered the evacuation of the Whole Foods Market, Starbucks, Meadowbrook Swim Club and other businesses.

By 11 a.m., the Smith Avenue bridge, the only vehicular link to the complex, was closed to traffic.

An employee at the Mt. Washington Post Office, located on nearby Cottonworth Avenue, said it was still technically open for business. “But I don’t know how the trucks are going to get back,” she said.

An evacuated but dry Whole Foods stands beneath sodden skies today. The Jones Falls, which swings around the complex on the left, stayed within its banks. (Mark Reutter)

It was the same story downstream, where the rising Jones Falls threatened to surge over the bridge leading to the Meadow Mill buildings.

“Never a dull moment,” tweeted the ACLU of Maryland, one of the businesses located there.

“Our work will continue (but not at the Baltimore office). Stay safe and dry everyone,” the group announced, retweeting a video of the high water slopping over the top of the bridge.

Further downstream, water rushed within feet of the rear parking lot of historic Whitehall Mill, a re-purposed residential complex.

And on lower Falls Road, near the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, geysers of sewage water surged from a half dozen manhole covers, turning a portion of the roadway into a smelly, shallow canal.

The pressure of sewage mixed with rainwater lifts up the manhole covers of the sewer main that runs beneath lower Falls Road. The effluent flows into the Jones Falls (behind the fence) near Outfall No. 67. BELOW: Sewage water drains into Western Run just east of the light rail station at Mt. Washington. (Mark Reutter)